Friday 28 June 2013

♡ London MCM Expo Weekend ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 


Girl jigeumui nareul mideojwo (Nae anen michin sarami isseo) ♪♫

It's been over a month now since expo had finished... despite having almost a whole week off work and then some... you would have thought that I'd had the motivation ((there's that darn word again)) and time to write this blog post... brain says no though (_ _ll)


It's been a couple of years since I last went to the expo - I actually thought that 2010 was the last time I went but it was actually in 2011 the last time I visited... d'oh. But this time instead of making plans and then coming up with excuses not to go to the event; I actually stuck to my guns and went along yay (ノ ̄ω ̄)ノ I made the plans with Emilia and we opted to stay in a hotel close to the Excel centre - Forest Gate to be precise - and it wasn't so much of a hotel... but more a residential home turned B&B? Either way the place was really nice and a great distance from Excel as well as central London despite having to keep chopping and changing to different lines to get to said central of London.


Emilia and I headed off into central for the Friday evening for food and purikura... typical right? But sadly the purikura photobooth place might be closing down and there was limited sheets for the actual purikura machine so we did that first to beat the whole expo rush and actually get a memento of our time together! 

↑↑ Best purikura to date... ↑↑

After purikura we then headed over to Eat Tokyo, a restaurant I have wanted to go eat at for aaagggeeesss but couldn't find it when Toni came down to visit so this time I stuck to my guns and kept going (as well as with the help from Emilia's gps on her iphone!) until we found the place booyeah ( ̄︶ ̄)
Eat Tokyo is seriously the smallest place I think I have ever eaten in... and I've been in some pretty small places in London as well as in Seoul... but the atmosphere was bubbly and the smells of the food were simply divine! There was a small queue as well so we didn't get seated for about 30 minutes and by that point we were both starving and ready to eat anything and everything! Emilia and I opted for a couple of  side dishes to share as well as a main dish each. We went for the tamago omelette and chicken teriyaki california rolls then I chose a mixed katsu bento box whilst Emilia had a sushi bento box and I tell you what for the prices that were given... the portions were massive! Almost as good as Misato's but the pricing is just slightly higher... but I'm definitely going to return to this establishment before I head to Seoul for my teaching gig (︶ω︶)


On the Saturday morning; Emilia and I had originally planned to wake up early and get to the excel centre early but we realised that we didn't have to exactly rush to get to the venue so we dilly dallied a little and got to the centre around 11am... it was soooooo crowded already and the queue to buy tickets were already out the doors at the front... I do believe both Emilia and I were extremely relieved that we decided to buy our tickets online so all we had to do was sweep in, grab our wristbands, wait a few moments for some strange reason and then swoop out again and into the main hall! 

↑↑ Isn't Emilia pretty?! GFDI woman... ↑↑

The only problem I have with standing still for more than ten minutes is that I tend to find that I get all fidgety and bored ugh... After spending a while inside the hall and talking to a few people that we both knew separately, we went and sat outside for a while as it gets extremely hot inside and as we were both enjoying the sunshine... there seemed to be a small gathering of Deadpools... it was pretty fantastic though because I soddin' love Deadpool man! He's not my favourite character but he always cracks me up into mass bouts of laughter ( ´∀`)


We stayed at the excel for all of the afternoon where we met some new people and chatted away with them for a while and then we decided to head back to our hotel to rest and wash away all of the grim as Saturday was pretty sweltering... and I felt vile so having a shower sounded like the best plan ever at that point! We stayed in watching Titanic and had a small pizza party!


Day three of the weekend started later as well... not as late though as we had to check out by 11am (aka leave the keys on the side and skulk out like thieves in the night jfc) and we headed into Stratford Westfields to get a coffee hit from Starbucks:


I ordered a soy triple caramel frappe with no cream... holy crap the amount of sugar in this drink had my head spinning all day! I also decided to say that my name was Leo (my favourite member from the k-pop group VIXX... look at said video in this blog post for reference) and the barrista man obviously had thought  that I said 'Neo'... yes I decided to say I was from The Matrix (_ _ll)


I've never been to the expo on Sunday's before and honestly... Sunday is officially and definitely the best day to go in because the crowds are much smaller and prices on certain things had been deduced because I think many stall holders just want to get rid of stock? Either way I managed to grab a few bargains! I think Emilia got a few bargains as well... I can't remember to be honest! Also there were some serious amazing cosplays on the Sunday! Because of the smaller crowds, I managed to stop and actually take some photographs of different ones. Here are my favourites from the entire weekend:


I cried happy tears when I saw a Gundam cosplay... it was the only one but hey at least there was one! Also the child storm trooper had a storm trooper teddy bear! Crying even more again because it was holding hands with a Boba Fett cosplayer fhskahfkjads


These storm trooper cosplayers were amazing... the patience they had was phenomenal because of the amount of people that wanted pictures with them were extreme... like extreme extreme! Also look at the one with the child Jack Frost cosplayer... right in the feels again.


After hanging around outside with Zore and Emi and listening to some sound music... Emilia and I headed off as we had trains to catch and yeah... sobs it was horrible parting from Emilia because I adore that girl to pieces and the expo weekend was seriously so memorable and the best one I've ever had so I thank her from the bottom of my heart for putting up with me and my weirdness. Oh... have one more picture showing off all the goodies I nabbed from the entire weekend:

↑↑ I regret nothing with these goodies ↑↑

Peace Out
xoxo

5 comments:

  1. Waaahh nice! Seems fun. I love the Gundam cosplay too ;0! It's sad if the purikura place closes, but they're really expensive to maintain. One machine costs like 10 000 euros plus they need the additional gadgets like sheets.. and new machines every now and then. Unfortunately in Europe young peeps who use these might not have that much cash to screw so maybe the company doesn't get enuff of income :[
    Have a happy weekend xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ISN'T IT AMAZING?! I'm super excited for the October one now because I hope it'll be there again so I want a picture with him so badly! And really?! Holy crap that's expensive... well with machines they haven't exactly updated in a long time so yeah... plus also business seems to be kinda booming lately so hopefully it won't close down!

      Thanks for reading bb ♥
      xoxo

      Delete
  2. I love Emilia's cosplays and your outfit too... i need to steal that hat at some point ; n ;

    I swear those storm troopers are at every expo! They must be hired by mcm :O

    Super excited for October now!


    ♥ Sapphy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. fhsdkahfdksjl waifu ; n ; and just buy it off ebay you s.o.b!
      And actually they're not! They're actually professional cosplayers and tend to do charities and like parties as well... so I think expo is just a fun thing for them to do! We see them around central London collecting money for charities and asked one time hence why I kinda know XD

      And me too fnsdkajfhkjsa... waifu times with waifu ; u ; ♥
      xoxo

      Delete